Here’s what a dedicated PC version of Xbox Game Pass means

A full version of Microsoft’s game subscription service is on its way to PC. The change was announced last night by the company’s CEO, Satya Nadella, in a quarterly earnings call, and confirms that PC players will now be able to access the full Game Pass library.

Game Pass is currently only available on Xbox. On that platform, players who pay $10 per month get access to a library of more than 200 games. There are plenty of older titles in that library, but at this year’s E3, Microsoft announced that all of its first-party titles would come to Game Pass simultaneously with the rest of their release, meaning players have been able to access Sea of Thieves and Forza Horizon 4 almost straight away.

Nadella did not reveal how the PC version of Game Pass would work, but the chances are relatively high that it’ll use the Microsoft Store in some way. All of the Xbox’s first-party games are already releasing on PC anyway, and with another exclusive on the way in the form of Age of Empires 4, it would make sense for Microsoft to use a system that’s already in place.

PC players can, of course, already make use of the Game Pass, albeit in a slightly roundabout way. “Play Anywhere” titles allow you to play on Windows 10 as well as Xbox. It’s only a limited selection of titles, but given that FH4 and Sea of Thieves feature on that list, it’s still not a bad investment. Presumably, we’ll get access to everything that the Xbox version offers, with a handful of PC exclusives thrown in.

In the earnings call (via Windows Central), Microsoft didn’t announce a release date for the PC Game Pass, but it’s likely to be some time next year. Microsoft have at least two major releases on the way in the form of Gears 5 and Crackdown 3, so it would make sense to have a new system in place by the time those release.